This invention relates to an individual coil winder with automatic coil change for winding string-like material, especially wire.
Individual coil winders of this type are described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,292,114 and have found acceptance in practice. It has been discovered, however, that a retrofit installation of the wire manipulator disclosed in that application into already existing winding machines can be carried out only at great expense. Furthermore, difficulties arise in the case of rigid and less flexible wires with respect to wire deflections.
An object of the present invention is to provide an individual coil winder of simple and clear-cut design with a manipulator mountable to existing winders and adjustable to minimize deflection points for the wire, whereby rigid or relatively stiff wires can be wound up substantially more readily. An additional object of this invention is to provide such a coil winder in which both winding ends of a completed wire coil are undamaged and sufficiently long so that these coil ends can be welded to other ends to form a string as long as possible without the need for a separate auxiliary coil in the individual coil winder for preparing the long wire ends. Yet another object of this invention is to provide such a coil winder in which the winding and coil changing operation is full automatic, even for relatively high coil weights.